After helping others build three businesses in the mental-health
field, Holly Dorna was confident she could do better on her own.
But starting PsychTemps Inc., a Cincinnati recruiting and staffing
agency for the behavioral health-care field, turned out to be an
exercise in mental terror.

"Making the transition from working for someone else to
owning everything was scary. Many mornings, I'd wake up at 5
a.m. feeling panic-stricken," Dorna says. "I'd been a
success three times and made money for other people, but maybe this
was the time I was going to fail. I thought of myself as an
entrepreneur but, for awhile, `entrepreneur' became a
four-letter word. Putting myself on the line, seeing my bank
account shrink month by month and not knowing if my idea would
work--I was more frightened than I'd ever been in my
life."

Let's face it: Starting a business is an unnerving
proposition. Whether you succeed or fail, every aspect of your life
is affected, from bank accounts to friendships. Yet while fears
surrounding start-ups are normal, they add pressure to an already
stressful situation. Avoidance is not the answer. Instead, you must
face your fears and learn how to cope. Here are 10 tips to smooth
the way:

1. Start slowly. Quitting a 9-to-5 job one day and
starting a business the next would give anyone nightmares. Dorna
suggests making a slow transition by starting your business part
time to ease some of your fears.

"When the last company I'd helped build was sold to a
hospital, and the owner made a lot of money--but I came out with
nothing--I decided to try consulting," Dorna says. She did
well financially, but felt pulled in too many directions and wanted
to create a business into which she could pour all her energies.
She started PsychTemps in 1995, working at it part time for almost
two years while keeping up her consulting practice. "I felt I
had less to lose, since I was only working part time," she
says.

Making a gradual transition also gives you time to think, plan
and work on potential problems, which should help lessen your
anxiety.

2. Ask for help. Fear of the unknown has stopped many
would-be entrepreneurs in their tracks. While no one can respond to
your doubts with 100-percent certainty, experts and others who have
been in your shoes can ease your fears.

"Starting a business is scary, but all true rewards come
with risk," says Betty Otte, a Service Corps of Retired
Executives (SCORE) volunteeer who counsels small-business owners
via the Internet. "SCORE members help people who are starting
a business take that big, scary monster and dismantle it. We lead
them through a process that enables them to plan and prioritize.
We're there for them every step of the way, walking alongside
them, breaking down fear and turning it into success. We know it
can be done because we've done it ourselves."

With all the help available (much of it free), there's no
reason for a start-up to go it alone. Try SCORE's Internet
e-mail service (see "Web Sites Worth Visiting," above),
or hook up with a local SCORE office. (Call 800-634-0245 for the
location of the SCORE office nearest you.) Your local Small
Business Development Center (SBDC) is another source of free,
one-on-one counseling. You can also access the Internet for
additional ideas and support; just type "starting a
business" in your browser and you'll find hundreds of
sites worth exploring.

"A well-thought-out business plan can go a long way toward
helping alleviate start-up fears," says Bill Fioretti,
director of the SBDC at the University of Cincinnati.
"It's fascinating to watch people go through the process
of building a plan. As their ideas crystallize and they make
three-year financial projections based on facts, you can almost
feel their sighs of relief."

4. Expect the unexpected. Unless you're blessed with
unlimited monetary resources, starting a business means taking a
financial risk. Unfortunately, you can no more control many of the
variables that affect your investment than you can stop a tornado.
Whether it's a superstore that undercuts prices, an unhappy
customer who sues, a snowstorm that collapses a roof or a war in
the country from which you import your goods, outside influences
can threaten any business.

It's frightening to think that everything you've worked
for can be wiped out by circumstances beyond your control. And
while you may not be able to keep superstores from building, stop
customers from suing, halt falling snow or bring peace to warring
countries, you can accept the reality that being in business brings
risks, and institute methods to address those risks.

Start by imagining "what if" scenarios involving
circumstances that might put your business in jeopardy: "What
if my biggest supplier goes belly up?" "What if our
building is struck by lightning?" "What if there is a
health scare involving my product?"

Once you catalog outside influences that have the potential to
harm your business, create a contingency plan to deal with each of
them. Hopefully, you'll never have to put the plan into action;
but if disaster strikes, having a strategy will go a long way
toward giving you peace of mind.

5. Build confidence and faith in yourself. If you're
the kind of person who constantly worries about what other people
think, you'll need to swallow a big dose of confidence before
starting your own business. Alana Chandler, for instance, owner of
Paint Yer Pottery, in Dallas, could never have gotten her store off
the ground if she hadn't fought the doubters with the only
weapon she had: her belief in herself.

"It's hard enough to be taken seriously when you're
a young female who's never run your own business before,"
Chandler says. "But it's even more difficult when you
present your idea to people and they look at you as though you
thought up a silly concept last night and decided to go find a
store.

"I'll never forget opening day," she recalls.
"A guy I'd been dating, who had said he totally believed
in me, called the store to see how I was doing. I told him how busy
I was and how it really seemed to be working. `Really?' he
asked me. `Are you kidding? But people are coming in to look, not
to paint, right?' " Chandler isn't dating him
anymore.

"When everyone around you is questioning your sanity, of
course you're afraid they may be right," she says.
"The only thing you can do is have confidence in yourself and
your idea, and go on to prove them wrong."

Success tends to breed confidence, so if you're short on
belief in yourself, set achievable goals and celebrate publicly
when you reach them. For instance, send press releases to your
local newspaper when sales figures exceed expectations and each
time you celebrate another year in business. If an article gets
published, send it to everyone on your mailing list. At the very
least, feel free to brag a little at gatherings of fellow
entrepreneurs. Pats on the back, even when solicited, can send your
confidence soaring.

6. Put fear to work. Why view fear as a negative when it
can be a powerful motivator? Fear of forfeiting a home to the bank
has launched more than one laid-off executive on the road to
business ownership, and fear of failure pushes many entrepreneurs
to work around the clock to get their businesses up and
running.

If you're fearful, pinpoint exactly what you're afraid
of, then consider ways to deal with it. Let's say, for example,
that you own a design firm with a partner who, you discover, may be
fooling with the books. Because the business has been surpassing
sales projections and your partner is an old friend, you're
scared of confronting her with your suspicions. You think up lots
of excuses: "She's the financial wizard, after all. Maybe
I'm calculating the numbers incorrectly. Or maybe she's
just made a mistake." Inside, you churn with anxiety.

As with most things in business--and in life--you have a choice:
Do nothing, and possibly watch your company crumble, or act,
spurred on by your fear that the business may fail unless you step
in. Using fear as a motivational tool means analyzing the cause of
your anxiety, enumerating and sorting through alternative
approaches, then acting. While inertia fuels fear, action can
overcome it.

7. Reshape your thinking. "My biggest fear when
starting this business was not making enough money to cover our
living expenses," says Ellyn Ingalls, owner of Poole-Brook
Farms, a North Haverhill, New Hampshire, company that markets
gourmet specialty foods, handmade from fourth-generation family
farm recipes. "I never doubted that we had a great product and
that it would sell. But with the expenses involved in getting a
company successfully off the ground, I was concerned that we would
lose what we had worked so hard for. We started the business about
$30,000 in debt and then we borrowed another $23,000, so money was
always a concern."

But this past year, after an emotionally draining winter,
Ingalls reexamined her priorities. "I thought a lot about how
I wanted to live my life," she says. "I decided that if
we lost everything, so what? There's always something
else."

Accepting the fact that the business might fail had the opposite
effect from what you might expect. "Actually, I gained a sense
of freedom," she says. "At the same time I decided to
stop worrying about the money, I also decided I would take the
energy I'd been spending on that and focus it on the
business."

8. Build a support network. Fioretti says that talking to
fellow entrepreneurs who have walked the same path you're on
can help assuage your fears. "Focus on success," he
suggests. "Attend conferences, join associations and talk with
others who started as you are, but who have moved on to the next
step."

Fioretti suggests creating an advisory board. Include your
banker, your accountant and, perhaps, someone in the marketing
field. "As a single-person operation, you won't have a
management staff to bounce ideas off," he says. "A board
of more experienced business owners can fill that role, helping to
steer you right."

Don't forget family and friends as sources of support. Seek
out those who are generally optimistic people. While they may not
be able to relate to your specific fears about starting a business,
you should be able to count on them for emotional support.

"My sister said to me, `You can do this. You've done it
before,' " Dorna says. "That helped a lot."

9. Take care of yourself. Dorna thought about getting
massages or some counseling when she was feeling the most alone and
afraid. But both choices seemed a bit self-indulgent--as well as
expensive. Instead, she upped her treadmill exercise routine from
two days a week to five. "That helped break some of the stress
and clear my mind," she says.

When a friend or spouse asks how to help during a stressful
start-up, be ready with ideas. And if they don't ask? Tell them
what you need. Also, be prepared to give yourself a boost. Make a
list of inexpensive treats that take less than an hour. Choose one
a day: Buy yourself an ice cream cone and take the time to enjoy
it. Read the comics. Do some stretching exercises. Play a video
game. Call a faraway friend for a quick chat. Dream about your
business in full swing.

10. Just do it! "We can't escape fear. We can
only transform it into a companion that accompanies us in all our
exciting endeavors," says Susan Jeffers, Ph.D., author of Feel
the Fear and Do It Anyway (Ballantine, $12, 800-733-3000). Jeffers
believes that our fears are rooted in the thought that we can't
handle situations that confront us. "If you knew you could
handle anything that came your way, what would you have to
fear?" she asks.

Fear is one of the most elemental of human emotions, yet it need
not lead budding entrepreneurs to give up their plans or stop the
expansion of their businesses. If you find yourself shaking in your
shoes over some business concern, remember that most successful
entrepreneurs have been afraid at one time or another. But while
fear may have slowed them down, it never stopped them.

Lynn H. Colwell offered five remedies for business burnout in
the June issue of Business Start-Ups.

Web Sites Worth Visiting

The National Small Business Development Center (SBDC) Research
Network (http://www.smallbiz.suny.edu )
offers a listing of all the SBDCs across the United States, links
to small-business Web sites and articles that answer questions
frequently asked at SBDCs.

SmallBiz Net (http://www.lowe.org/smallbiznet/index.htm
) offers a list of books about starting a small business; the
Edward Lowe Digital Library, one of the largest collections of
small-business information on the Web; research findings on
entrepreneurship; and links to other small-business sites.

The Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE) offers names of
chapter counselors and their areas of expertise at its Web site
(http://www.scn.org/civic/score-online
), along with e-mail addresses for direct contact; and one-on-one
counseling in more than 400 locations.